In this concluding chapter I lack the space to summarise the many features of our dry grain mode which have been discussed above. So I mainly confine myself to emphasising some of the conclusions which seem to be particularly at variance with ‘prevailing general orthodoxy’ – by which I mean orthodoxy which tends to appeal to those of all political complexions, for nowadays Right and Left often find themselves in an unholy embrace. I take the conclusions in a somewhat arbitrary order, under a number of headings.

THE NATURE AND ORIGINS OF RURAL STAGNATION: THE WITHDRAWAL FROM THE COUNTRYSIDE (CHAPTER XII)

It is my contention that contemporary stagnation in the dry grain zones, which is particularly expressed in terms of low grain yields and lack of agricultural and other forms of diversification, is basically due to a withdrawal from the countryside rather than to urban ‘capitalist intrusion’ – as is so commonly supposed. Formerly having been the medium, or matrix, within which most economic enterprise flourished, the dry grain countryside has now become a backwater which is increasingly ignored by urban-dwellers – the process of withdrawal, which is very long term, having been hastened by the necessary collapse of the large estates owned by influential outsiders and aristocrats which has resulted from the ending of farm-slavery in Hausaland and the legal dispossession of the jodidars in Karnataka.